In the manufacture of nonwoven composite materials such as wipes, certain additives have been proposed for specific purposes, such as increasing dry strength, wet strength, dry elongation, wet elongation, improving softness, reducing stiffness or control of wetting properties. In the past, strength agents have been added to paper products in order to increase their strength or otherwise control the properties of the product when contacted with water and/or when used in a wet environment. For example, strength agents are added to paper towels so that the paper towel can be used to wipe and scrub surfaces after being wetted without the towel disintegrating. Wet strength agents are also added to facial tissues to prevent the tissues from tearing when contacting fluids. In some applications, strength agents are also added to bath tissues to provide strength to the tissues during use. When added to bath tissues, however, the wet strength agents should not prevent the bath tissue from disintegrating when dropped in a commode and flushed into a sewer line. Wet strength agents added to bath tissues are sometimes referred to as temporary wet strength agents since they only maintain wet strength in the tissue for a specific length of time.
Although great advancements have been made in providing strength properties to paper products, various needs still exist in the art to increase or to otherwise better control strength and elongation properties and reduce stiffness in certain applications of paper products. For example, a baby wipe that has low strength and/or low elongation can fall apart during use, which can have negative consequences for the user. In addition, current methods of increasing the strength of the wipe typically include the use of more synthetic materials that are higher in cost, usually resulting in a stiffer product, are less environmentally friendly, and have less absorbent capacity for holding liquid or semi-liquid materials.
A need exists for a cost-effective nonwoven composition that provides high strength, high elongation and reduced stiffness properties to a fibrous material, such as a wipe, while simultaneously retaining high performance and absorbency.